PRHO

Pre-registration house officer. A now-retired term for a mandatory year of training in hospital medicine undertaken by all doctors in the UK upon completion of their medical degree.
Before the Modernising Medical Careers (MMC) initiative, newly qualified doctors were only allowed provisional registration from the General Medical Council (GMC)—e.g., pre-registration—for the first year, during which they usually took two 6-month jobs, one interventional—linked to general surgery (house surgeon)—and the other non-interventional—linked to general medicine (house physician). PRHO was almost invariably followed by one or two years as senior house officers (SHOs). After the MMC, all graduates of UK medical schools underwent two years of foundation training (FY1 and FY2) as a prelude to either a three-year programme to become GPs, or before beginning specialty training periods of varying duration. Under the Modernising Medical Careers programme begun in 2007, PRHOs are now known as Foundation Year 1 (FY1); the PRHO year is termed an internship in other countries.